Plant City area baseball leapt into the Saladino Tournament this spring break, an annual spring showcase for Hillsborough County’s high school teams, with Strawberry Crest battling to wins over both Plant City and Durant en route to an appearance in the semifinals.
Despite coming out on top of the two hard-fought wins that it took to reach the semifinals, the Chargers eventually faltered as they were unable to overcome a talented Plant team, falling 6-1 on Tuesday.
Strawberry Crest entered the tournament with a 5-2 record. After dropping their second loss of the season in a 6-4 contest against Hillsborough on March 8, the Chargers bounced back with a high-scoring, extra-inning win over Alonso on March 10. The 14-13 final was led by red-hot senior Ethan Pues, crushing a third inning grand slam to mark his second consecutive contest with a home run while driving in a monstrous six RBIs. Plant City, on the other hand, had been challenged just once all season – coming in a 5-4 comeback win over defending 6A State Champion Bloomingdale – as they entered the tournament with a perfect 5-0 record and just one earned run allowed from their stellar pitching staff on the year.
It was a premier matchup of pitchers last Saturday as junior Luke Richardson took the mound for Crest, facing Plant City junior Adan Longoria.
After a scoreless first, Crest struck in the bottom of the second inning. After junior Damien Bennett reached base on a hit by pitch with one out, sophomore Akhil Nimmala reached with a base hit. Brandon Watts drew a walk to load the bases and Longoria responded with a big strikeout to get Plant City just one out away from escaping the early jam. But leadoff hitter Eli Vickers came up huge for the Chargers, smacking a bases-clearing triple down the right field line to give Crest a 3-0 lead, their only runs scored on the evening.
From that point on the pressure sat on the shoulders of the Chargers’ defense and the right arm of Richardson, and they both responded.
Richardson pitched six strong innings, allowing just one earned run on a two-out RBI single in the sixth from the Raiders’ sophomore Chase Mobley before fellow junior Alex Philpott entered the game and tossed a perfect seventh inning to shut the door on their first game of the tournament.
“Anybody who was here saw how well Luke pitched,” Strawberry Crest head coach Eric Beattie said. “He got into a little bit of trouble there a couple of times but he did a really good job of keeping his composure and making his pitches when he needed to. Offensively, we had some runners on base there in the third inning when Eli came up and, as he’s done a few times before this season, he had a big swing and that’s all it took.”
Richardson has been a rock for the Chargers since making his way into the starting rotation this season, putting together an earned run average of just 1.59 behind strong outings in wins over Osceola, Chamberlain and Plant City.
“The first two innings, with runners on, I was mainly just focusing on getting outs and getting through that lineup to keep the energy up for at bats,” Richardson said. “Then in the second inning we have bases loaded, Eli comes up and gets that two-out triple, it was absolutely huge. That was a great piece of hitting by him and it was basically trying to keep them at zero after that, trying to let the defense do their job and just do my job as a pitcher.
After a narrow victory over the Raiders, where they difference in the game truly came on one swing of the bat from Vickers, the Chargers bounced back on Monday as they headed across town to face Durant.
The Cougars entered the Saladino Tournament at 4-2 on the heels of back-to-back losses, including a narrow 5-4 final against Bloomingdale and a surprising 5-0 loss at the hands of then 1-4 Jefferson the week before. Prior to their matchup against Strawberry Crest however, Durant bounced back in a big way with a 10-0 win over Leto to kick off their own tournament play.
In the second local Plant City area rivalry matchup of the tournament, Durant senior Torin Byrnes took the mound to face Crest’s Zack Redner.
In the top of the first, Crest wasted no time jumping out in front early.
After reaching base on a hit by pitch, Vickers stole second and was moved over to third on a sacrifice bunt from Ray Allen Vasquez before coming around to score on a single to left from Pues. After Pues moved over to second base on a stolen bag of his own, Redner helped out his own cause before even getting a chance to take the mound with an RBI single. And in a blink, Crest held a 2-0 lead.
Durant would prove far from discouraged though as they punched back in the bottom half of the frame. Sophomore Nick April-Gath got the ball rolling as he led off the inning with a bunt single and moved over to second as Aiden Welsh reached on a hit by pitch the next at bat. Junior Dylan LaPointe stepped up next and roped an RBI single, putting Durant’s first run on the board and leaving runners at first and third, still with no outs in the inning. A sacrifice bunt from Oscar Fernandez left runners at second and third. Redner was able to get a strikeout to pull Crest just one out from closing the inning with minimal damage but a ground ball to the right side from Noah Morales found its way through the infield and drove home two more runs, giving the Cougars a 3-2 lead.
In the top of the second, Brandon Watts reached base safely by way of an error with one out and Nimmala put two runners in scoring position with a double to the right field gap. A ground out to second base scored Watts to knot the game up at 3-3 and an error on the next play not only allowed the go-ahead run to score, but allowed the inning to continue and Vickers to reach second safely before coming around to score on a single from Vasquez, extending the Crest lead to 5-3.
After the second, both pitchers settled in and found their groove for a majority of what remained in the contest.
In the fourth, Durant cut the Crest lead to just one. Sophomore Ryan Santana reached on a one-out single before moving to second via a sacrifice bunt. With two outs, Devin Suero put down a slow roller in the infield, using his speed to beat the play and force an errant throw to first, scoring Santana and bringing the score to 5-4. Durant threatened again in the bottom of the fifth when their first two runners of the inning reached safely, but Redner stood tall inducing a double play and a fly ball from the next two hitters.
In the sixth, Crest tacked on one more insurance run with a little bit of luck on their side. After a single from Philpott, he was moved into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt. After taking an aggressive secondary lead on a ball in the dirt, the throw from Durant’s catcher got past the Cougars’ middle infielders and into center field, allowing Philpott to come all the way around to score from second.
With a 6-4 lead, Crest was able to hang on to their second consecutive win in tournament play. Redner would ultimately go 6.2 innings, handing the ball off to Philpott who entered with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, the go-ahead run at the plate and got a one-pitch fly ball out for his second save in as many games.
With another win, the Chargers advanced to the tournament semifinals where they faced the rolling Plant Panthers on Tuesday, fresh off of a 9-0 victory over Alonso and an 11-2 victory over Wharton. But despite their two strong contests to start the week, Strawberry Crest fell behind early and were unable to claw their way out of the deficit.
Plant scored one run in the top of the first on Tuesday to take the first lead of the ball game and Crest answered back with a run of their own in the bottom half of the inning as Philpott singled to right, scoring Vickers. But Plant kept pushing, adding another run in the second and another run in the third to build a 3-1 lead that would ultimately be enough to claim victory. The game remained scoreless from that point on until Plant came alive in the top of the seventh, tacking on three more runs as they cruised to a 6-1 victory and a spot in the Saladino Tournament championship.
With Sickles advancing to the finals from the other side of the bracket, the Chargers faced Jesuit on Wednesday in the tournament’s third place game.
Despite the Chargers’ eight-run effort, one that included a home run from Pues and multi-RBI days from Vickers and Philpott as well, a three-run top of the seventh claimed the 9-8 victory for Jesuit
After their loss to Crest, Plant City returned to action on Monday where they went to extra innings against Leto, ultimately losing 2-1 in nine innings. And on Tuesday they got back into the win column against Alonso with a 9-8 victory. On Wednesday, Plant City got another shot against Bloomingdale in a rematch from their third game of the season, coming out on top with a definitive 6-1 victory.
On Tuesday, Durant took on Wharton where they fell in yet another narrow contest by a final score of 4-3. And on Wednesday they finished their tournament with a 10-7 win over Steinbrenner.
After spring break ends, all three teams will be back to regular season action on Tuesday, March 22 as Durant heads to East Bay, Strawberry Crest heads to Freedom and Plant City hosts Spoto.